The following year, facing the attacks set in train by Louis II of Chalon, the Count of Tonnerre, in the Duchy of Burgundy, Margaret ordered the strengthening of the defences and the closing of the towns, mustered the necessary funds together whilst, at the same time as systematically appointing mandates to the warlords, organising a hard-hitting re-conquest of the strongholds besieged by Chalon. In 1417 she again assumed direct protection of the Duchy’s borders against Armagnac attacks, demonstrating once more her capacity of assuming perfectly the political role that was expected of her, in a context in which, as Colette Beaune reminds as a conclusion to the present work, the multipolar nature of the Burgundy states demanded a certain division of labour. ‘Margaret of Bavaria was a woman full of a certain force of character, she had a strong authority which was expressed in the real political influence she could lay claim to, way beyond that of a simple whispering into her husband’s ear,’ concludes Alain Marchandisse. ‘John the Fearless would moreover, it seems to me, have constantly been patting himself on the back for having married Margaret.’ It should nevertheless be stressed that female power was not only expressed in political activity, but also in art as a vector for passing a political message. The illustration on the outside front cover of the present work attests to this. The wife of Edward IV of England, Elizabeth Woodville (1437-1492), is represented on it ‘in all her majesty’ (see the illustration opposite), attired with all the symbolic attributes of power – the crown and sceptre, of course, but also the globe, the blue ermine lined cloak, covering a red robe – whilst she was never queen consort or queen regent, but the wife of a King with full powers. ‘The women of the court, who were potentially women of power, had great artistic preoccupations. The latter were very often cultivated women,’ Jonathan Dumont reminds us. ‘Like their husbands, for example, they assembled libraries and played a paramount role as patrons, much like Margaret of Austria (Note: governess of the Netherlands on behalf of the Emperor Charles V), who is the subject of one of the book’s chapters. But above all, art allowed them to affirm at the same time their magnificence and to transmit a political message. Power and art are consubstantial, the former being served by the latter.’

Success stories, or almost

Women of Power, Political Women does not nevertheless boil down to a collection of success stories, even if, as Jonathan Dumont and Alain Marchandisse confess, the documentary sources have a tendency to ‘make the winners better known, to magnify the glorious histories whilst leaving to the shadows careers which are much less so.’ Out of the thirty-seven life paths of political women broached here, of which certain feature as model figures – Joan of Arc, who ‘made a King and founded a nation,’ and Isabella the Catholic, reputed for her ‘masculine qualities in the body of a woman,’ obviously spring to mind and are each the subject of a contribution to the book, without for all that overshadowing the political weight of a Catherine de Medici (1519-1589, Regent of France whilst her son, Charles IX, was a minor) or a Anne of France – seven are to a greater or lesser extent resounding failures, in other words, if we accept the opinion of Colette Beaune, cases of unpopularity or the impossibility of retaining or transmitting power. Amongst the ranks of political women held in check, Isabeau of Bavaria, Margaret of Clisson (1372-1441, who failed to place one of her sons at the head of the Duchy of Brittany) and Jacqueline of Bavaria (1401-1436).